Denise Louis-Bar

Denise Louis-Bar was a Belgian neuropsychiatrist. Louis-Bar syndrome, an autosomal recessive neurodegenerative disorder is named after her.

Biography Denise Bar was born on April 3, 1914, in Liège, Belgium. She lived in Spain with her family until the age of 10.

In 1939 Denise completed her master's degree, with a joint degree in éducation physique (physical education) from the Free University of Brussels.

Within a month of her marriage to Louise, they moved to the Ardennes after her husband had to join a Belgian army unit there. Later she worked as a lecturer in pharmacology, and later as neuropsychiatrist in the department of internal medicine at the University of Liège.

She did not remain in the field of neuro research for long. When her husband moved to Belgium in 1957 to join director of the Belgian Office of Study of Nuclear Energy, the family moved to Brussels, she stopped her career in research and moved into private practice, particularly, she worked as a neuropsychiatrist treating individuals with intellectual disabilities. Elizabeth A. Coon, who published a paper on Denise Louis-Bar's life in the journal Neurology in 2018, received the AAN McHenry Award in History for this article.

Major publications